“In the woods,” she paused, thinking back and then frowned, her eyes narrowing and a small line appearing between her brows as she tried to remember. “It was you.”
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said, and it was one of the few things in his life that he felt true remorse for. His single-mindedness had caused her injury. He’d thought only of his vow, of his obligation to the title and to all those who had passed before him, and not given a thought to the injured and terrified woman in front of him. It was no wonder she’d run. “It’s my fault you were harmed.”
Her frown deepened, her lips parted as if she meant to speak, and then she attempted to shake her head as if negating his statement, but she was too weak. A coughing spasm overcame her, so fierce that it lifted her upper body from the bed and left her gasping. When it passed, she collapsed back onto the bed so still and quiet he feared she had passed.
Terrified, he rose to his feet, pulled back the covers and watched the painfully shallow rise and fall of her chest. Relief washed through him, but he knew in that moment that it would take far more than simply rest in a warm room to see her well again. She needed medicine and the only man nearby who could provide it would never step foot in his home for any reason. “I have wronged you, Mary Benedict,” he said in a gruff whisper. “Perhaps not so much as others have in your short life, but I mean to atone for it. I will find out who you were running from, who you were afraid of… and you will never have to fear them again.” It was the least he could do.
The door opened behind him and his old, stooped housekeeper entered. She was the only one of the servants who remained aside from a groundskeeper and a stable master, one of the few who had not fled either because of his disgrace or his altered fortunes. Her age would have prevented her from getting work elsewhere. It wasn’t loyalty that kept her at the Wolfhaven. It was fear of destitution. Her bitterness toward him over the death of Helena, the mistress she’d adored, was boundless. He tolerated her abuse daily because he frankly had no other choice, and perhaps because, in some perverse way, it reminded him of what everyone else thought of him. If he ever doubted that he needed to clear his name, even the briefest conversations with Mrs. Epson would remind him of why it was so urgent.
“It ain’t right for you to be in here. The girl will be ruined—if she’s not already. What kind of lady is out running about the woods anyway? Not a lady at all, to my mind! Likely some trollop with a pretty enough face to pass for genteel. Bringing her into my sweet mistress’ house, putting her in nightclothes too fine for the likes of her!” The old crone finished her diatribe with a loud “harrumph.”
“Mrs. Epson, I pay you to clean the four rooms of this house that are actually in use and to prepare food. I rarely quibble about the less than adequate job you do of both, or your impossible rudeness to me, but I will not tolerate that sort of mistreatment of Miss Benedict. To that end, I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself,” he reminded her sharply.
The old woman squawked in indignation, set the tray of food she carried down with enough force that the lid of the soup tureen went careening off to the side. Had it not landed on the ancient and dust-ridden carpet, it would likely have shattered. She turned on her heel to shuffle back to the kitchens.
With her bent back and hooked nose, she looked like the witches from the stories his governess had told him as a child to frighten him away from the woods. Witches, he thought, as a memory stirred for him.
“Wait!” he called out. “Your sister is a healer, isn’t she? And she lives nearby, does she not?”
The woman spat on the floor, an old gesture he’d seen farmers do over the years to ward away evil. “Aye, she does to my shame.”
“She’s skilled with herbs… the villagers and tenants go to her for remedies rather than the doctor.” He vaguely remembered whispers of other, slightly darker tasks attributed to her, but as he was damned anyway, he had little care for such things. By most accounts, he was worse than any devil the crone might be in league with.
“She’s dabbling with things good folks ought not!” The housekeeper turned once more toward the door. As she neared it, Miss Benedict coughed again, the fit so fierce it left her gasping. Mrs. Epson paused. “I don’t suppose it matters much given how you found her. She’s bound for hell anyway and so are you. She lives west of the ruined church at Burrow Mump. You ask any folks near there and they can tell you how to find her. But you’ll not go at night. The girl will survive till morning or she’s too far gone for help anyway! You can go after whatever wicked brew my sister concocts after the dawn breaks.”
With that, the housekeeper stormed out, as much as a woman her age could storm anywhere. Still, the door slammed behind her with remarkable force.
On the bed, Miss Benedict stirred again, but did not waken. Leaving her for a moment, he crossed the room and ladled a bowl of the thick and unappetizing stew that had been prepared. It might have been mutton, or rabbit, or squirrel. With Mrs. Epson’s culinary abilities, it hardly mattered. It would all be greasy and, if he were lucky, tasteless. Settling in before the fire, he contented himself to be near enough to offer aid should she need it.
There was something about her. She appeared so fragile and yet he knew her to be quite fierce. She had all but unmanned him in the woods, after all, with her precise and rather diabolical aim. Had it not been for his relatively quick reaction upon realizing her intent, the outcome might have been very different. She might have actually gotten away. But to what end? She would have still been burning with fever. Had she spent the night in the woods, damp and cold, she likely would have died. The very thought of it sickened him and so he put it from his mind. Instead, he focused on what he knew of her, aside from the fact that she’d lied about her name. She was an appealing package of contradictions—resourceful, strong, and determined, all while appearing so fragile with her stature and slender frame. Even in her current condition, Alex had to admit that he was drawn to her, attracted to her as he had not been to any woman for a very long time. Naught would come of it, of course. What woman in her right mind would want anything to do with him, after all?
He sat there for the longest time, not eating, simply holding the bowl in his hands and enjoying the warmth of it far more than he would ever enjoy whatever dubious nourishment it might provide. The weight of his burdens was pressing in on him. Debts, financial and moral, had to be paid. But until he managed to right the wrong that he’d inadvertently been a party to, to repair the damage he’d wrought in the lives of others, there was no hope of putting his own to rights. His gaze was drawn once more to the pale, wan figure of Mary Benedict lying in his bed, too ill to move. He didn’t deserve to have his own life restored to its former glory, he thought bitterly. Why should he have a moment’s peace when he’d condemned others to suffer so?
Miss Benedict stirred in her sleep, her dreams offering her no peace. Was it her captors who haunted her nightmares, or some strange man who had pursued her through the woods? He was still wreaking havoc on all those around him, whatever his good intentions might be. When she awoke, he’d find out where to send her to, to get her far away from him and whatever curse was on his head. She was a distraction and a temptation that he could ill afford.
Chapter Two
Alex had not slept. He’d kept his vigil beside the girl’s bed until the first rays of dawn had filtered into the room through the curtains. He’d gone outside, saddled his own horse and made the short ride to Burrow Mump. The house was easy enough to find. He’d passed two small children on the road, asked them where the healer lived and they’d given him the direction. Even as they’d done so, they’d made the sign to ward off the evil eye. One child even crossed himself but, as the boy most assuredly was not a Catholic, Alex had wisely kept to himself that genuflecting was likely not going to help him.
The small cottage was simple with a thatched roof, green shutters and various animals grazing in the yard as he approached. There were numerous plants, some fl
owering even in the cold, that surrounded the cottage. In all, it was bright and cheery and looked nothing like the sort of hovel one might expect to see a witch living in. But then he doubted very much that the woman was anything of the kind. He knew only too well how much rumor and gossip could color the perception of a person.
The door opened and an aged woman stepped out into the light. “My sister is too wretched to die, so I know that isn’t why you’ve come.”
As he had not identified himself to her, Alex was somewhat taken aback by her accurate ascertainment of his identity. “You know who I am?”
It might have been a smile that cracked the older woman’s face or it could have been a grimace. Given the cragginess of her features and the deep wrinkles that bracketed her thin lips, one was indiscernible from the other. “Aye, I know who you are, m’lord.” There was a certain amount of derision in the address. “They say you killed your wife. But you don’t look much like a killer to me. If you were, then you’d have dispatched my vile wretch of a sister long before now!”
“If you mean Mrs. Epson, then I assure you she is quite well and as mean spirited as ever,” Alex insisted.
“No one comes here without needing something, your lordship. What do you need of me?” she demanded, her tone as abrupt as her sister’s.
“There is a woman, Miss Benedict, who is ill. She has a terrible fever and a fierce cough. I fear she will die,” he admitted.
She eyed him steadily, her gaze piercing. It was as if she’d peeled back his skin and looked into the very heart of him. “And you think it will be your fault if she does?”
It would be his fault. That was an undeniable fact. “Yes,” he admitted simply, not offering further explanation of how.
She eyed him for a few moments, staring at him as if she’d split him open and was looking deep inside of him. It was unnerving to say the least. Had he not been so desperate to get help for Mary, he would have simply left.
Finally, after a long tense moment, she commanded, “Tether your horse yon and come inside. I will give you what you need for her.”
Alex did as he was bid. She had a manner about her that was similar to Mrs. Epson’s, in that she was coarse and seemed to have just as little regard for his title. Though she clearly knew it, he reflected. But that was where the similarity ended. The bitterness that his housekeeper seemed to nurture like seeds in a garden was not present in her sister. Regardless, there was something rather terrifying about the woman. Otherworldly, even. But if she could provide the assistance he needed to save Miss Benedict, he would gladly forgo any rules of etiquette and ignore his own discomfort to curry favor with her.
Entering the cottage, he was greeted with rafters draped in dried herbs and shelves of jars full of things he could not identify. Some, he did not wish to identify. “You are a healer?” It had become more a question than a statement of fact.
“I am many things, a healer amongst them,” she said, and pointed to a rather rickety chair of interwoven reeds. It was pushed up next to a rough-hewn table made of wide, scarred planks and littered with bowls and bottles and what he assumed were the tools of her peculiar trade. “I’ll get the herbs you need to treat the cough and others to build up her blood. Don’t let those idiot doctors bleed her unless you want her to die!” The last was uttered as a warning as she turned to one of the small shelves that lined the room and gathered an assortment of ingredients.
“There is only one doctor near us and he’d as soon step foot in hell itself as darken my door,” Alex admitted. “And I’ve little enough faith in his abilities even if the situation were altered.”
The woman nodded. “Just as well. They don’t know anything when they think they know everything. They call themselves learned men. Fools, the lot of them.”
Alex watched her as she used a pair of leather gloves to pinch leaves from a dried plant and place them in a mortar. With a pestle, she crushed them in a manner that was both practiced and efficient. It also belied her appearance. Stooped and weathered, he’d thought her old, but she did not move with the slow and stiff gait of an elderly person. When the chore was done, she then placed them in a small, leather pouch and retrieved a small vial of a dark liquid.
“Jimson weed,” she said, holding up the pouch. “Some call it devil’s trumpet, and if you misuse it, I imagine it’s close enough to hell to warrant the name. It must not be ingested under any circumstances. To do so would induce terrible visions or even kill her outright. It must be burned and the smoke drawn into the lungs. Place it in a bowl and burn it near enough to her that she will be forced to inhale the fumes. The other is for the fever. Just a few drops in her tea or broth and it should help.”
Carefully taking the herb and the elixir from her, he tucked them into the pocket of his coat while nodding his understanding. As Alex made to withdraw a few coins from a small purse, she placed a staying hand over his.
The old woman shook her head. “You’ll not pay me with something as dirty as money. Not when you’ve kept my sister on in that house of yours rather than shuffling her off to me. The herbs are a gift… but I would have one thing from you, Lord Wolverton.”
“And what is that?” he asked.
She held out her hand to him. “I would see your palm and know the nature of your character. I would know whether the tales of your wickedness are built on truth or lies.”
It was superstitious nonsense but, given that she’d readily offered her aid, he didn’t feel he could refuse. Removing his glove, he held out his hand to her, palm up. The old woman took it, her grip surprisingly firm as she traced each of the lines she found there. She contemplated the lines in silence for an uncomfortably long time, until the very air in the room crackled with tension. He moved to pull away, but she held him firmly, her strength surprising. More than surprising. Unnatural.
“You carry a heavy burden of guilt for an innocent man,” she said. Her voice sounded distant, faraway, as if she were speaking from a great distance rather than sitting across the small scarred table from him. “The vengeance you seek, for your wife and now for this young woman who resides in your home—in your bed—they are the same. It was the same man who harmed them both. But you know that already, you simply do not yet know why… what the purposes of his schemes were. And your wife… she was no innocent. She’s not with the dead, either. But she’s somewhere in the in-between place.” The old woman paused again, frowning at the strangeness of her own ramblings, it seemed. “The end is closer than you think. But beware you do not trade your future to avenge your past!”
A cold chill shivered through him. It wasn’t even her words. He could feel power emanating from her, as if she were digging into the darkest recesses of his soul simply by looking at his palm. Abruptly, and with more force than necessary, he pulled it back, breaking free of her iron grip and rising to his feet. “I am well aware of Helena’s faults, madam. I see no need to speak ill of her.”
“I speak the truth, my lord, whether it is ill or not. As for your Miss Benedict… she lies. But her heart is pure. Remember that.”
Alex had no response to that. He just nodded. “Thank you for your assistance, madam. I must be on my way. There is no time to lose for Miss Benedict’s sake.”
The old woman smiled toothlessly. “No. There is no time to lose. She came to you just when she should. Go, Lord Wolverton, and know that you will soon be free of your burdens.”
Alex said nothing further and quickly made his exit. To say that he found her manner and her odd way of speaking unnerving was to put it mildly, indeed. He felt rather like he’d wandered onto the stage at Drury Lane without knowing his part. Taking up the reins once more, he mounted his horse and made for Wolfhaven at a speed that was irresponsible and bordered on reckless. He’d be lying if he said it was simply his rush to return to Miss Benedict with a remedy that he hoped would ease her suffering. It was also a burning need to get away from Mrs. Epson’s sister and her strange prophecies. He didn’t even know the woman’s na
me, but she’d identified him clearly. Not only that, it very much felt as if she’d peered into his very soul. She’d unnerved him and that was a feat not many could lay claim to.
The ride helped to clear his head and to ease whatever irrational and superstitious fears that the old woman might have roused in him. He would not lend it any more credence than that. When he arrived at Wolfhaven, he found Mrs. Epson at the front door screeching. Dismounting, he tossed the reins to his stable master, another aged servant who’d stayed on simply because he had no place else to go. “What the devil are you wailing about?” he demanded.
“She’s dying, my lord!” The woman sneered at him like she had the right to such insolence. “She’s up there gasping and coughing and if she dies, it’ll be on your head… again!”
Alex moved past her, taking the stairs two at a time. Miss Benedict was in the throes of a coughing fit so severe that he couldn’t see how her slender body could possibly withstand it. Her back was bowed from it, the cough so deep and rasping that surely no one could survive such distress. Taking a small, silver cup from the tray by the fire, he placed a pinch of the herbs in the bottom of it and used one of the tapers from the mantel to light it. When the smoke began to billow from the cup, he crossed to the bed and held it close to her, forcing her to inhale the acrid and foul-smelling stuff.
Whatever it was, it worked. Within minutes, her coughing eased. The wheezing sound of her breathing began to lessen and, as she collapsed against the pillows once more, it seemed that for the first time since he’d found her in those woods, she truly rested. Placing the remainder of the herbs in a drawer beside the bed, he once again set himself to keeping watch over her.
It wasn’t simply about responsibility, though he certainly felt that for her. There was something strange about Mary Benedict that drew him, that called to a part of him and tender feelings that he’d thought long dead. His late wife and the misery of their marriage, coupled with the destruction wrought by its aftermath, should have put him off women entirely save for those who could provide pleasure and require no commitment. And yet, Miss Benedict stirred him to long for more than that, for conversations over breakfast, for the hours after passion was spent when he could hold a woman in his arms. She had, it seemed, managed to resuscitate the romantic boy he’d once been from the bitter wreck of a man he now was.
The Mystery of Miss Mason (The Lost Lords Book 5) Page 2
